Tuesday, 12 August 2014

I'm crying as I write this. It's often those that give the world the most happiness and laughter that are dealing with the greatest sadness. I will forever be grateful to this comedic genius for all the beauty and happiness he brought to the world. For his wonderful stand up comedy and his incredible sensitive portrayals of characters both fictional and real. You will be missed and you were loved by so many. I'm so sad that you ended your life far too soon. I'm so upset that you couldn't feel the love that the world had for you for yourself. Thank you for Good Morning VietnamThank you for Dead Poets SocietyThank You For AwakeningsThank You For The Fisher KingThank You For HookThank You For AladdinThank You For Mrs DoubtfireThank You For JumanjiThank You For JackThank You For The BirdcageThank You For Good Will HuntingThank You For FlubberThank You For Deconstructing HarryThank You For Fathers' DayThank You For Patch AdamsThank You For What Dreams May ComeThank You for Bicentennial ManThank You For A.I.Thank You For InsomniaThank You For Death To SmoochyThank You For One Hour PhotoThank You For Happy FeetThank You For The Butler I've been reading some truly insensitive comments online about the fact that Robin Williams took his own life and how he had a long life so therefore they only find it tragic if someone young does so?! I wouldn't normally be so personal online but who knows, maybe this will help someone, somewhere be less cold. It's hard enough dealing with depression and then having the people around you, not understand what you are experiencing makes you feel even more alone. Having battled depression since I was a child and been suicidal myself (about 10 years ago), the darkness that surrounds you on a daily basis for years eventually gets too much. It's not something you can just 'shake off'. It's all consuming. Your thoughts and feelings act against you. All you want is for the constant pain to end. Imagine having the worst day of your life emotionally and then put that on repeat every single day for years. You are alone in your loneliness. You are trapped in your melancholy and can't feel the warmth of those reaching out to you. For anyone who has felt these feelings of hopelessness, this is not a message that is pro-suicidal at all. I'm still here, I'm alive and kicking and so happy to be alive despite the daily tragedies in the world. I found my way back to the light with the support of many others and the desire to keep fighting the darkness.This is merely an attempt to try and express what depression can feel like for those who don't know. I think David Foster Wallace said it far more eloquently: “The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.” If you think even for a second that you might be struggling from depression, tell someone. Tell someone who you know is sensitive or empathetic. Depression tricks you into feeling immense shame and that you are truly alone in the world. You aren't. There are people who love and care about you. There are people who have been through the same things as you and are still here and found happiness. You don't have to suffer alone. There's so much to live for. Thank You For the Laughs and the Tears, Robin. You will forever be missed and loved!